d friend of my wife's, and don't you
forget it!" Bingo's gills are red, and he puffs and blows as large,
excited, fleshy men are wont to. "If you do you'll answer to me!"

"I tell you," Beauvayse cries, white-hot with passion, and raising his
voice incautiously, "that I mean to marry her. I tell you again that I
will div----"

"Do you want the man in the street and every soul in the hotel to know
your private affairs?" demands Bingo. "If so, go on shoutin'. As to your
bein' a widower, the chances are on the other side.... Gueldersdorp ain't
exactly what you would call a healthy place just now. And as to divorcin'
your wife, how do you know she'll ever be accommodatin' enough to give you
reason? And if she did, do you think a girl brought up in a Catholic
Convent would marry you, even if you called to ask her with a copy of the
decree absolute pasted on your chest? Hang it, man, your mother's son you
ought to know better! And--oh come, I say!"

For Beauvayse sits down astride an iron chair, and lays his shirt-sleeved
arms on the back-rail, and his golden, crisply-waved head upon them.

"I--I love her so, Wrynche. And to stand by and see another man cut in and
win what I've lost by my own rotten folly hurts so--so damnably." His
mouth is twisted with pain.

"Is there another chap who wants to cut in?" Bingo demands.

"You know one gets a bit clairvoyant when one is mad about a woman," says
Beauvayse, lifting his shamed wet eyes and haggard young face from the
pillow of his folded arms. "Well, I'm dead certain that there is another
man who--who is as badly hit as me."

"Who is the other man?"

"Saxham!"

"The Doctor! Shouldn't have supposed a fellow of that type would be
susceptible now," says Bingo. "Gives an uncompromisin' kind of impression,
with his chin like the bows of an Armoured Destroyer, and his eyebrows
like another chap's moustaches."

"And eyes like a pair of his own lancets underneath 'em. But he's a
frightfully clever beast," says Beauvayse. "And what he wants in looks he
makes up in brains. And--and if he knew there was a scratch against me, he
might force the running and win hands down. So hang on to my secret by
your eyelids, old fellow, and don't give me reason to be sorry I told----"

"You have my word, haven't you? And, talking about scratch entries," says
Bingo, inspired by a sudden rush of recollection, "I ain't so sure that
the Doctor--though, mind you, this is between ourselves--is the